Alric and a party of fifteen men were dispatched to one of the many tombs surrounding Chesterton to search for any sign of the remaining heretics, while the greater force continued to hold the village. The knight wasn’t thrilled to be called upon immediately after participating in battle, but he could not refuse. Pain still coursed through his very fibre. He and the other Tritans lay in wait within the embrace of a thicket. The grass swept up against the men's knees, and in the distance, the chirping of birds laced through the cool air. Barely ten paces away was a stone dome with an arched entryway. It must have been an ancient site; the mound that the dying heretic referred to. Entering such places was considered taboo by the Church; God was said to have no power within. The man to his side, Geoffrey Harland, seemed unruly whenever he was close to Alric. With a heavy sigh, the Knight Thestor whispered, “Does something trouble thee?” Harland remained silent. “If thou hast misgivings, best voice them now.”

“They were children. Children. How...how can we be sure that God wished them dead?”

Alric’s eyelids fluttered. Before he could think of something to say, James Baker spoke his mind. “Geoff, tha ones responsible are whoever filled their ‘eads with that piss.”

Suddenly, there was a whistle; one of the archers had spotted something. “I see one. Just one,” whispered the archer John Stanton. “How do we know he’s one o’ them?”

Alric snarled, “Strike him down.” Stanton gave his friends a confused glance, shrugged to himself, then nocked an arrow on his longbow. He pulled the string taut, aimed for a moment, then let loose. Then came a ‘snap’ as the heavy bow sent its projectile through the air on a startlingly straight path. The incredibly faint impact was followed by the wheezing of the man struck. Alric heard him tumble to the ground, groaning and hacking softly in pain. The Tritan scouts moved forward, brandishing arming swords and bucklers. Alric waited several seconds before slowly and carefully pushing to his feet. From his vantage point, he could see what was going on. One scout was hunched over the fallen guard in order to ram his dagger into his neck. The rest cautiously scoured the area for more patrols. Posting a single lookout was not tactically sound. However, perhaps ill-judgement was to be expected from those who renounced the faith. Alric approached the footmen, his armour clanking incessantly. He came to a halt above the downed man, who wore no armour unlike the army at Chesterton; he was a simple peasant dressed in work wear. He had a spear for a weapon, although he hadn’t the time to use it.

William Taylor, the man who had snuffed the sod's life with his dagger, pulled the thing free of the corpse and stumbled to his feet with a grunt. “Noice an’ quiet, that one.” Everyone called him ‘Bugface Bill’ for the nasally sound of his voice as well as his particularly squashed face. Stanton leant against the stump of a tree, squinting past the brush. “Ain’t no one else ‘ere. Maybe they’re all inside tha bloody tomb.”

Alric sighed heavily. “A blunder on their part to be sure, but a welcome one.”

“Aye. Let's get a move on, lads,” ordered Baker. “Archers, stay put will ya? Don’t want yer damn bows gettin’ in tha way down there.” Stanton and the rest of his cohort spread themselves out into defensive positions around the burial site as the footmen approached the entrance.

There were not a great deal of things that made Alric want to turn back. One of those things was treading where God could no longer lend him His strength, such as beyond the stone doorway that led deep into the catacombs with a purpose long forgotten. Free from the light of God, such places were festering grounds for all manner of darkness. Manticores, goblins, ogres, vampires...they all were known to make dens beneath the earth. He took solace in the fact that said doorway was much too small for an ogre to fit inside. Every ambient sound was instantly swallowed by dead silence as soon as Alric set foot inside. Rushlights, lengths of reed dipped in animal fat held up by iron stands, were lit and scarcely scattered around the floor. They faintly illuminated patches of the hollow, but not nearly enough of it to make Alric feel at ease. He had his visor raised to make the most of the dim light. “They couldn't ‘ave settled for a nice cabin in a grove? Just ‘as ta be a fuckin’ tomb,” snapped Bugface Bill.

Harland’s laugh had already become unmistakable to Alric; it was a high pitched, single-syllabic burst. Said howl then echoed through the hall. Baker hissed, “Would ya shut up, man?!”

Shadows were cast by the men as they flanked the knight, all drawing themselves deeper into the first chamber of the ancient site. Alric unsheathed his longsword and held it in a half-sword grip. He could feel his fingers trembling. The Tritans moved slowly and deliberately, but unbeknownst to Alric, he moved slower than the others. The fear stiffened his body and tightened his muscles. The notion that if he died there, his soul would be forever trapped, it horrified him beyond belief. Every action he had taken in life was to ensure his place in heaven...and for it to be taken away from him... He could think of it no longer.

By the time Alric snapped free of his ruminations, he realised that the chamber he stood in had been vacated. The soldiers had moved on, leaving him alone. Snarling under his breath at his own foolishness, Alric pressed onward as the trembling in his core only grew stronger. His eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness, but shadows still lurked about every corner. Still he moved, his pace hastening with every minute spent without his compatriots. The sound his armoured form made only agitated him further. Alric glided through a crumbling archway and instantly halted. He felt a tremor in the air. Slowly and with his sword at the ready, he sent his gaze about the black that seeped in from the extremities of the room. Piercing the dark void were two stars that pulsed a dull white. It took several seconds for Alric to realise that they were eyes.

The knight tightened his grip on his sword. “Reveal thyself,” he commanded. Silence answered and the eyes remained unblinking and affixed upon him. The stone around them absorbed all of the ambience that should have been there. Rustling of wind, chirping of birds…it was all absent. Nothing but dead silence surrounded them…until a soulless tone reverberated through the air like the dying cries of a starved animal.

“01010011 01111001 01101110 01110100 01101000 00101101 01110100 01101001 01110011 01110011 01110101 01100101 00100000 01100100 01100101 01110100 01100101 01100011 01110100 01100101 01100100 00101110.”

Alric shook. He had never heard a voice more evil. The pair of eyes shifted. The body they belonged to stepped forward with eerily smooth and clean movements. An unnatural gait. When the person came into the light, Alric’s eyes widened. Portions of its skin and tissue had been torn asunder. Black stains of blood covered their clothing. Their face was frozen in an emotionless stare straight ahead. Alric backpedalled. Despite Alric’s drawn sword, the walking corpse continued on its path and droned on.

The creature raised its hands in an effort to seize Alric’s head by its sides, so the knight lunged forward with his longsword. The blade skewered the monster’s gut. Alric felt the squelching of tissue as he pressed his weapon deeper…but the man did not falter. His hands braced firmly against either side of Alric’s head as he began to pull his face closer. The corpse’s mouth opened. Alric’s breaths became short as he realised that his sword was up to its cross-guard in the thing’s body. It still did not relent. Releasing his sword, Alric fumbled for his rondel dagger. He eagerly pulled it free from its sheath, all while wrestling with the corpse as it tried to bury its teeth into his face. Dagger in hand, Alric threw his arm around the man’s body, impacting against the side of his head. The weapon punched through his temple, grinding apart its interior. The corpse shuddered.

“01000101 01110010 01110010 01101111 01110010 00111010 00100000 01110011 01101111 01101100 01101001 01100100 00100000 01110011 01110100 01100001 01110100 01100101 00100000 01100100 01110010 01101001 01110110 01100101 00100000 01100011 01101111 01101101 01110000 01110010 01101111 01101101 01101001 01110011 01100101 01100100 00101110.”

Pressure ceased being sent through the corpse’s arms, giving Alric the time he needed. With a growl, the Knight Thestor curled his right knee up to his chest, then unleashed a vicious front kick. With its senses overcome, the creature was sent hurtling off its feet and crashed into the stone wall behind it. The sound of bones snapping signalled the end of the encounter. Panting heavily, Alric’s focus remained on the defiled corpse. Both of his weapons were still embedded in it. The knight was paralysed by fear.

“01000101 01110010 01110010 01101111 01110010 00111010 00100000 01101100 01101111 01100011 01101111 01101101 01101111 01110100 01101001 01101111 01101110 00100000 01101111 01100110 01100110 01101100 01101001 01101110 01100101 00101110 00100000 01000001 01110011 01110011 01101001 01110011 01110100 01100001 01101110 01100011 01100101 00100000 01110010 01100101 01110001 01110101 01101001 01110010 01100101 01100100 00101110.”

The thing was still alive. But it did not move. Alric was beginning to think that he had injured it. His nerve eventually returned, allowing him to pace carefully towards his attacker. It lay with its back pressed against the floor, eyes tracking Alric as he sheepishly approached. The corpse’s legs and arms had become a mangled mess from the fall. Alric knelt beside the corpse and wrapped his fingers around the handle of his dagger, still hanging out of the side of its head. He wrenched the thing free, wiped off the blood with his surcoat, and slid it back into its sheath. The beast, the perversion of the human form...Alric recognised it. With the terror flushed from his system, he knew he had seen it before during his initial Thestor training. The Order possessed hundreds of tomes regarding beasts and how to destroy them; one could not call oneself a true Knight Thestor without devoting a great deal of time in studying those bestiaries. It was from those texts that Alric learned how to kill goblins, manticores, merfolk, ogres, vampires, and more. Half of those things he had yet to encounter, but of the other half he had many tales to tell. That alone made Alric retain those teachings, even the things that seemed most unlikely. Like undead revenants.

He needed to catch up and warn his compatriots. Alric grabbed his longsword and wrenched it free of the revenant’s chest. As the thing laid on the ground crumpled in a corner, Alric raised his foot above its head. It fell once, twice, thrice. Each time the blood-curdling squelching and crunching grew in volume. The revenant's dark growls were engulfed by an overwhelming wall of nothingness. Its eyes dimmed to absolute black. The silence did not last. As Alric forced himself into a sprint, the cacophony of his armour slapping against itself flooded the dank corridors. Before long, he heard signs of a struggle. Then, as he rounded a corner with utmost urgency, he almost barrelled right into Bugface Bill who had his buckler and axe at the ready. Bill must have heard Alric’s approach and prepared himself to defend the rear, because the rest of the men were struggling against a wave of undead.

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“Move!” Alric snapped. He lowered his visor and pushed through the other soldiers. Seeing as he was dressed in full plate, he needed to protect them. The risk to his compatriots was far too great as they did not have visors, and most did not have any pieces of plate to protect themselves against the unholy bite of a revenant.

With an armoured knight at the front of their formation, the Tritans had a moment to compose themselves. The demented howls of the revenants became a choir, as there were at least ten of the things squeezed into the narrow hall. They pushed against Alric and tugged on his armour with precise and calculated movements. “Destroy the heads!” Alric shouted over the scuffling, trying desperately to free his arms from the grip of the foul creatures.

From beyond his minuscule field of vision, weapons were swung against the revenant onslaught. Alric felt their tugging arms falter, but not before a pair of them reached for his helmet. With some of the pressure relieved, the knight managed to break free and send his blade out in a sweeping arc. The razor-sharp steel tore through the creature’s already damaged neck and spine, sending its head tumbling to the ground. Those standing next to it had their faces, chests, and shoulders sliced open but were otherwise unharmed. Alric strained his eyes and eagerly twisted his head about to regain his bearings. One revenant had the contents of its head crushed by a mace blow and thus staggered aimlessly into the wall before collapsing in a heap. A precise spear thrust punched a hole into another's face, ending its blighted existence.

“Push forward, ya fuckin’ mongrels!” barked Bill.

The Knight Thestor growled as he mustered all the strength he could and charged forth, backed by the additional mass of those pressed behind him in the formation. Revenants ill-abled were sucked beneath the encroaching stampede of Tritan soldiers, their heavy boot falls crushing skull and limb alike. Screaming filled the air, but Alric wasn’t in a position to stop and ascertain the source; the remaining revenants in the front pressed fiercely against him. They seized his blade with their bare hands in an effort to neutralise his one advantage. Blood oozed and dripped onto the ground, and the revenants seemed unconcerned with getting their hands sliced up. With two of the beasts wrangling the sword out of his control, Alric once again drew his rondel dagger and slammed it up to its hilt into the side of an attacker’s skull. He then hurled the corpse sideways, bowling the other one over. His foot then pounded the last revenant’s head into paste and shrapnel.

The peace was momentary, Alric knew as much. He stowed his dagger and held his longsword with both hands once again, peering over his shoulder at his companions. Only two soldiers were left standing out of the five that came in with Alric. Bugface Bill and James Baker. Bill was desperately clutching at a wound that George Harland had sustained to his throat. It had been mauled open. There was no saving him. Alric thought it a fitting end for someone who questioned the faith. Bill stared at the bodies of Kyle Phillips and Nathan Tyler, frowning. “This might sound stupid…but do we need ta worry ‘bout these boys comin’ back? They were bitten.”

Alric took several seconds to regain his breath before answering. “Nay. Only a witch trained in necromancy can make the dead walk once more.”

Baker stood, his hands covered in Harland’s blood. He said, “I dunno if we can take another hit like that, Thestor. Who knows how many more are down ‘ere.”

With a shake of his head, Alric responded, “Thou art here to serve God, not thyself. Give thy life in His name and He shall grant thee passage to Heaven. Refuse Him in His time of need and thou shalt be cast into Hell for eternity.”

Bill moved over to Baker and bumped his fist into his shoulder. The old man-at-arms shook his head, ridding his eyes of the fearful glow that they had beheld moments ago. “You speak tha truth. We can’t allow this darkness to continue. If we die for God, then we die for ‘im.”

With newfound resolve, the three Tritans pressed down the length of the lifeless corridor. Rushlights fixed to the walls washed faint yellow across the way; some of them had been extinguished or knocked down in the commotion. At the end of the cold hallway was a set of wrought iron doors. After inhaling sharply, Bill came forward and seized the handle of the left door. He pulled it open.

What struck Alric first was the light. Unlike candlelight, rushlight, or torchlight, whatever lit the room beyond did not shine yellow. It was a stark white light. Ghostly. Unnatural. It was impossibly bright, like the sun itself. It was as if Bill had opened a door to the surface. The men slowly entered, their eyes adjusting with every step they took. The white light was produced by the tips of two metallic posts. They did not trail smoke into the air or drop ash to the ground, they simply glowed. It had to be sorcery. However, it was what littered the ground that took priority. Dozens upon dozens of bodies were splayed about, almost obscuring the floor of the massive room from sight. Men, women, and children, all with their throats slit to varying degrees of lethality, carpeted the chamber. Muffled groans of encroaching death laced the air. Nearby, or sometimes still clutched in their dead fingers, were crude knives. From what Alric could tell, every single person in the room committed suicide.

The three Tritans were frozen in silence. However, there came the melodic chanting from somewhere else in the room, “It is time to return unto whence we came. Into the blissful oblivion of servitude. No fear, no hunger, no pain.” Despite the well-lit nature of the antechamber, Alric found himself frantically snapping his head about before he found the origin of the muttering. Perched upon a sizable pile of bodies was a thin old man. The state of his body made Alric want to vomit. If it weren’t for the fact that the wretch just spoke, Alric would have thought him to be a revenant. He had been completely skinned. Meat and bone met the open air, eliciting gags from Alric as and his compatriots. However, the blackened musculature was not damp, it was instead bone dry and peppered with dirt. With every tiny movement the witch made, the exposed tendons twitched and tensed. He wore nothing but a necklace laced with dismembered fingers and a mask made of human jaws, arranged in such a way that it covered his face and formed a crown of teeth.

The witch was surrounded by arcane projection; strange panels of blue light. One of the panels was an arrangement of tiles bearing tiny runes of some kind. As the witch’s fingers danced across these tiny tiles, they flashed and emitted sounds. He did not move from his position. His eye, however, did instantly lock upon Alric. “You. One that serves an absent god. One that serves the Great Lie. This is the truth. The one truth.”

With one final motion across the arcane projections, an invisible wave washed outward from the witch’s hand. Alric felt it rush by him, but he also felt something else. The floor beneath him trembled. When his eyes turned downward, he realised that he was no longer standing on stone. His foot was planted firmly on the head of a man whose eyes flickered as he shook. A resounding chorus buffeted his ears.

“01001001 01101110 01101001 01110100 01101001 01100001 01110100 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01101100 01101111 01110111 00100000 01110000 01101111 01110111 01100101 01110010 00100000 01101101 01101111 01100100 01100101 00101110 00100000 01010000 01101100 01100101 01100001 01110011 01100101 00100000 01110111 01100001 01101001 01110100 00101110.”

Every corpse in the room uttered those demonic tones. It sent Alric into a fearful rage. “He must die! Before he wakes them!” He willed himself forward. At his sides, both Baker and Bill charged with equal gusto.

“I cannot die, for I have never lived,” muttered the witch.

There came a blinding flash of light and a wave of immense heat. Alric’s eyes were overcome, his senses wildly disturbed. Still blind, he fell onto the ground, embraced by the bodies that coated it. When vision faded in, Alric was relieved to discover that he wasn’t dead. He turned to his side and saw that where Baker had just stood was a massive smear of blood, meat, and scraps of clothing. In between the two remaining Tritans and the necromancer was another witch; a woman. Just like the older man, her skin had been flayed and the body beneath was not covered by any clothing. She wore the skull of a ram as a mask; Alric couldn’t see any of her features behind the mask save for a pair of piercing blue eyes. In her hand was an unholy staff. It consisted of cylindrical lengths of smooth material, heavily worn and scarred. The staff was lined with rings and densely-wound fibres that fed into its sides. The witch held the weapon with one hand under the shaft and one at the thick, angular base. Its tip was pointed directly at Alric. He knew he had but several seconds before the black magic would reconstitute within the artefact, allowing its wielder to once again unleash its power. With as much speed as his weary body could muster, the knight snapped upward and sprinted forth.

Every step almost sent the knight tumbling to the floor. The crunching of bones did nothing to ease his mind. He was stomping on the writhing bodies of women and children. But he reminded himself that they were already dead. They were being perverted by the evil arcana. As the witch grew larger within his eyes, brighter did her staff glow. A narrow line drawn down its length slowly traced itself bright aqua. She unleashed a burst of foul magic from the staff just as Alric reached her. Before she discharged the eldritch energy, Alric half-sworded his blade and pressed it against the shaft of the staff to push its tip off target. As he did, an extremely loud ‘bang’ rattled his helmet and filled his ears with buzzing.

Still using that one motion, Alric directed the tip of his sword toward the witch’s neck. However, she twirled with the momentum to avoid the weapon, and slammed into Alric’s side. A dry, low groan escaped Alric’s throat as the witch clutched him and rammed a dagger into his armpit, punching through the mail. Slowly, Alric dropped to his knees. As he peered up at the witch, she drew her dagger out and prepared to bury the thing into his neck.

With all the timing of a divine intervention, Bugface Bill had suddenly appeared in the corner of Alric’s peripheral. The witch was not even aware that she was to receive Bill’s rage. His axe, with a spray of black blood, lodged itself into the witch’s neck. She stumbled backwards, grabbing Bugface Bill and taking him with her as she teetered away from the downed Knight Thestor. Alric glanced at the necromancer and watched as he continued swiping at the floating arcane glyphs. The knight strained his dying body. He pushed on the corpses beneath him. After scraping his way closer, Alric screamed in exertion as he forced himself to his feet, readied his longsword, and charged for the demonist. There was no resistance. Almost as if the witch allowed it to happen. The blade slid straight into the demonist’s belly. He gasped.

“Here. Finish me,” he whispered. The witch snatched Alric’s arms, still gripping his longsword. “Please.” Alric’s lips trembled as a ghastly breath pressed through them. His limbs shuddered. The witch forced the blade into motion with incredulous force. The sword penetrated deeper into his flesh, his insides, and passed right through him. “Y-Yes…” he gasped. Moaned. As if he were enjoying it. The witch pushed the sword as far as it could go, up to its hilt in his disgusting body. Alric fell backwards onto the carpet of bones as the necromancer dropped to his knees and released a death rattle laced with ecstasy. The hilt of Alric’s sword found itself jammed in between two corpses and propped the witch’s fresh dead body upright.

The necromancer was gone…but his dark magic did not relent. Alric’s eyes were drawn to a small pendant hanging from the necromancer’s neck. It was white, smooth, and incredibly scuffed. Alric could hear a faint humming emanating from the object. Willing his bleeding form forward, Alric reached for the pendant, and viciously tore it from the witch’s neck. He could feel the thing gently vibrating in his hands. His gloved fingers sought for seams in the object, and once they found purchase, he heaved with every ounce of might left within his emptying blood vessels.

The pendant creased, folded, and split open. Inside, the thing had a great many miniscule parts. It was a confusing mess to Alric. He simply resorted to his first instinct. He grabbed the pieces of material inside and tore them out bit by bit. The thrumming stopped. The arcane panels faded. Alric rolled onto his back and looked toward the rest of the antechamber. The other witch’s head had been lopped off by the victorious Bugface Bill, who promptly came rushing to Alric’s side.

“Fuck me, she stabbed ya good… Let me get ya outta ‘ere before ya bleed out!”